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Sun, Nov 23, 2008 Posted By: Wristy

since Wrath came out i've been looking for anything that tells us what our spell hit should be for level 80 and the good people at The Warlocks Den have posted the following that has answered my questions.. for raids we need to make sure we're hit capped to ensure max dps.. no point having a shitload of spellpower or haste if what ur casting isnt hitting..

What is Spell Hit?
Spell hit is a combat attribute that increases a caster's chance to hit with spells. Spell hit is primarily obtained from talents or gear that has hit rating. The more gear with hit rating a caster has the lower the chance the caster's spells will miss (i.e. an enemy resist the spells). With patch 3.0.2, spell hit is capped at 100%; with enough spell hit, it is possible to reach a state where it is impossible for your spells to miss. A spell that fails to hit is shown as a miss, while misses caused by a target's resistance is shows as a resist. Spell hit has no effect on healing spells, as they will always hit.

Spell hit rating is part of the combat rating system that was introduced with Patch 2.0 and the Burning Crusade expansion. Each point of hit rating increases chance to hit with spells by a percentage. The exact percentage per point is based only on the players level. When the player's level increases, the points of +hit rating needed to achieve +1% chance to hit with spells increases as well. Viz, the percentage contribution by each +hit rating point is reduced when the player's level is increased.

Other than hit rating, Warlocks can increase chance to hit with talents:

Suppression, a talent at the top of the affliction talent tree reduces your chance to miss with Affliction spells by 1% per talent point (up to 3/3 for 3%). Note, this only effects Affliction spells. Your Destruction and Demonology spells will be unaffected.

Cataclysm, a talent at second tier of the destruction talent tree reduces your chance to miss with Destruction spells by 1% per talent point (up to 3/3 for 3%). Note, this only effects Destruction spells. Your Affliction and Demonology spells will be unaffected

Note: Neither of these talents effect demonology.

How spell hit chance is calculated
The spell hit mechanic has been confirmed by Blizzard CM Eyonix.[2] Base chance to hit is based on level difference between caster and target, starting at 96% for even levels, and going up or down from there, capping at a maximum 100%. Furthermore, the chance to hit is different for mobs (PvE) and player (PvP) targets.

Level Difference	PvE	PvP
-3	100%	100%
-2	98%	98%
-1	97%	97%
0	96%	96%
+1	95%	95%
+2	94%	94%
+3	83%	87%
+4	72%	80%
+5	61%	73%

For example, a level 70 caster attacking a level 73 mob will have a 83% chance to hit with spells in PvE. Furthermore, a level 70 caster attacking a level 74 or higher mob decreases by an additional 11% per level in PvE, and by 7% in PvP. Players many levels below their target will always have at least a 1% chance of landing a spell. This means you will have the minimum chance of hit against PvE targets at least 11 levels higher than you, and PvP targets at least 16 levels higher.

For casters, 1% of additional hit amounts to 1% additional damage statistically, up to the cap based on level of the mob being attacked.

What's the hit cap at level 80?
The question that everyone wants the answer to! At level 80, the highest level mob currently present is level 83 (e.g. all Wrath of the Lich King raid bosses), a level 80 caster has an effective spell hit rating cap of 446. That assumes no other spell hit sources.

446 hit rating

(That's to give you 100% chance not to miss)

The following table summarizes how much hit rating is needed for a certain level, after all talents and buffs are taken into consideration. To use the table, first add up how much hit you already have (don't forget the possibility of a draenei in your group or debuffs on your target that can increase your chance to hit with spells), then look up that row to find the hit rating cap for targets level 80 up to 83. End-game raiding casters generally use the level 83 column, as the effective level of bosses are 83.

Current % Hit	lvl 80	lvl 81	lvl 82	lvl 83	Notes
0%	105	131	157	447	No talent bonuses or buffs
1%	78	105	131	421	Draenei Heroic Presence
2%	52	78	105	394
3%	26	52	78	368	Destruction warlocks with Cataclysm or Affliction warlocks with Suppression

To summarize:

To hit a level 83 raid boss at 80 you'll need +447 spell hit without talents, or +368 spell hit with full specced suppression or cataclysm. At level 80, 1% hit chance is gained from 26.23199272 points of hit rating. You still need 17% (untalented) to be capped, giving a cap value of: 26.23 x 17 = 445.91 = 446.

The effect of Hit chance on Critical Hit chance

Unlike the melee combat system, spell crit makes absolutely no difference to hit chance. All spells, regardless of whether they are treated as binary or not, roll hit and crit separately. Conceptually, the game rolls for your hit chance first, and if the spell hits you have a separate roll for whether it crits.

Overall chance to crit over all spells cast is thus affected by hit rate. To calculate overall crit rate, multiplying the two chances together:

Code:

crit rate over all spells = crit * hit

For example, a caster with no spell hit rating gear or talents, against a mob 3 levels higher (83% hit chance), and 30% crit rating from gear and talents:

Code:

crit rate over all spells = 30% * 83% = 24.9%

In addition, direct damage spells suffer from partial resistance, but again, that has no effect on whether a spell hits or not.

Tue, Nov 25, 2008 Kalahon

Interesting. At least we get a little help from Cat and/or Sup. But I don't really see this being an issue capping with the gear that I have been seeing drop. Either way we will rain our pain on any enemies in our way, just as we always have. ShadoWarlocks FTW!

GJ Wristy

Tue, Nov 25, 2008 Kalahon

Oh, and I miss my sword......... stupid staff.

Tue, Nov 25, 2008 Wristy

my build has both supression & cataclysm so i dont see the cap being an issue, im already at 278 with that new staff..

i feel ur pain Kala, i hate the idea of having a staff after everything i went thru to get the blade & offhand i have..

gg blizztards

Thu, Nov 27, 2008 Dussk

Hee hee. funnily enough I like theidea of a staff again. It's what all casters should weild in my tolkien-like fantasy world.

Nice job on the research bro- cleared things up a lot. My jaw hit the flor when I saw +400 hit cap, but like Kal mentioned seeing some of the gear I don't think hit will such an issue. =)

~D~

Thu, Nov 27, 2008 Wristy

well if u check sum of the end game gear from the link provided by Wridel u'll see a lot of stuff is stacked with +hit so i dont think it's gonna be that hard.. so decent gear, couple of gems & some enchants will make it easy to cap spell hit..

for anyone who doesn't already have them grab the Scryers Bloodgem (if ur Scryer of course, if ur Aldor then u simply fail at life) and Fused Nethergon Band which will get u a hell of a lot closer to reaching the cap..